


The Girl's a Time Bomb

by JCMorrigan



Category: Skullgirls
Genre: But References Big Band's and Fukua's timelines, F/F, Friends to Lovers, I Wrote this in 2014, It's Probably Not Canon Accurate Now, It's the Filia Timeline So You Can Probably Guess What Happens, No Seriously This Story Doesn't Have a Happy Ending, POV Shifts at End, Short Chapters, Swearing, Takes Place in the Filia Timeline, The Sex Definitely Happens but It's Not Onscreen As Is Usual for Me, The Underage is Two Teenagers Having Consensual Sex, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 20:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 7,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13689558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCMorrigan/pseuds/JCMorrigan
Summary: After spending her wish to the Skull Heart restoring Painwheel's humanity, Filia was living on limited time. Making friends with Painwheel, all considered, was probably a bad idea. It happened anyway. And then they became more.Set during/after the Filia timeline, but makes reference to events from Painwheel's, Big Band's, and Fukua's timelines.





	1. Worth It

**Author's Note:**

> This begins from Filia's POV. It will eventually shift in the last few chapters, but I'll let you know in the notes when that happens.

“Your transformation will be slow. Make the most of it.”  
That’s the last thing the Skull Heart told me before it was suddenly inside of me. Meaning I would one day become the Skullgirl. The monster that had the power to destroy EVERYTHING.   
I wondered if it had been worth it, to trade my humanity for Painwheel’s. That wish…the Heart was right. I didn’t just wish her a normal life for her own sake. I wished it so I wouldn’t feel guilty anymore. But even then, when the Heart told me what was going to happen to me, the first time I was informed I was going to become the monster…I couldn’t think of what else I would have done. There’s no other wish I would have made. Not even my own memories.  
When someone tells you you’re from the Medici clan, you can kind of fill in the blanks, honestly.  
After that, I had to figure out what to do with my life. I did have an apartment I’d been squatting in since before my amnesia kicked in. Maybe someone in the Medici clan (My family? I know it’s the truth, but it’s still hard for me to refer to them as that.) bought it for me, and then was killed in Bloody Marie’s purge. The last Skullgirl’s purge. When I transform…I’m going to kill just as many people as she did, whether I want to or not.   
I still think it was worth it.  
I went back to my apartment, and I did lament it with Samson, the fact that I was going to become the next Skullgirl (and seeing as he was stuck to my head, he’d be along for the ride). “Didn’t you even think it through?” he asked me. “You had to have known that was a selfish wish!”  
I think I did, though. I think I suspected all along. But I wished for it anyway.


	2. Transfer Student

After everything calmed down, I got myself enrolled in school, in Mrs. Victoria’s ninth grade homeroom. That’s where I got to see my wish come true.  
I had been in school for a few weeks by then, and I wasn’t really paying attention when the new girl was brought in. Victoria yelled for us all to be quiet, and I already was, so I didn’t really give it a second thought. Then she said, “Before we begin, I’d like to introduce our new transfer student, Miss…Painwheel?”  
I sat bolt upright. My eyes were riveted on the front of the classroom.  
“Hmm,” Victoria muttered. “Must be foreign.”  
It was definitely her. She was clutching a cello case. She wore a school uniform…not white lab rags. Her long brown hair fell straight down over her shoulders instead of being pinned to the back of her head in a messy knot. She stood upright, not hunched over like an animal. And her face…the skin on it was pale like her arms now, though overall, she had more color to her. She looked more alive. And her jaw was, well, normal. No fangs. But she did still have red eyes. Bright red irises. And…the X-shaped scar still covered her face. It was held together with stitches. There was no mistaking her then.   
“Hi, everyone!” she said cheerily. It really threw me off, to see Painwheel so happy. “My name is Painwheel! I just moved here from the Labs, and I like sewing, puppies, and walks on the beach!”  
Then she gave us all a smile that I’m sure a lot of people thought was horrifying, but I actually had to choke back a laugh. She obviously wasn’t used to smiling with a normal jaw. She bared her teeth like she was going to eat us all up, but I knew that she was just trying to reflect how happy she was. “Nice to meet you!” she greeted.   
And it made me happy.  
I felt the Skull Heart twitch inside my chest, reminding me it was there. I broke out into a cold sweat. I felt sick. But it passed. 


	3. Lunch

I ended up being the first person to really talk to Painwheel after she transferred to our school. I wondered if she remembered anything from before I made the wish, or if I just gave her a clean slate. I asked her to sit with me at lunch time.  
“Hi, Filia,” she said, giving me that same big smile.  
I hadn’t told her my name yet. I know I was scared then. “You remember.”  
Painwheel’s expression went sour. “I do,” she admitted. “Pretty much everything.”  
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “For…you know. For bullying you when we were – “  
“Forget about it,” she told me, a little sternly. “We were kids. And I get the feeling you know better now.”  
“I do,” I told her.   
I wanted to ask her everything. What she was doing in the labs. How she turned into Painwheel. Where she was living now. How she’d gone from being the Painwheel I had fought in the streets of New Meridian only the month before to the Painwheel that was part of my homeroom. But instead, what came out of my mouth was “So you like sewing? I wouldn’t have guessed.”  
She nodded.  
We talked about clothes for the rest of the lunch period.


	4. Walks on the Beach

I remembered what else Painwheel had said, and so I started asking her to come walk with me on the beach down near Little Innsmouth. Nobody else was really approaching her at all. I don’t know if they were more afraid of her smile or her scars. Or maybe it was because she was still a little…harsh, when she spoke, sometimes. But otherwise, I didn’t get why they avoided her. She seemed to me like one of the friendliest people I’d ever met.  
It started as just a one-time thing: “Do you wanna hang out with me in Little Innsmouth later? Well, me and Samson. We’re sort of a package deal.”  
And she said, “Sure!”  
And all we talked about was sewing and puppies that day.  
But then it happened the next week and the next, and the more time we spent together, the more we realized we had to talk about the big things while we were walking up and down the shoreline.  
“You don’t remember anything?” she asked me.  
I shook my head. “But I don’t care. I know enough. I remember I was a bully, and Marie told me I was one of the Medici.” I told her about the apartment and my theories of how I ended up in it. “I don’t think I was a very good person.”  
“You weren’t very nice,” Painwheel agreed. “To me, anyway. But that was a long time ago.”  
“I just want to move forward.”  
“I get that.” Painwheel nodded. “I want to move forward, too.”  
“What about you?” I asked. “The last time I saw you before you transferred into Victoria’s, you were…um…different.”  
Painwheel sighed, and I knew she had to muster up a lot to talk about it, so I stopped and took off my shoes, sitting down at the water’s edge and putting my feet in the ocean. She did the same. I knew she liked that, being on the very edge between the water and the sand.   
“I just woke up in my own bed,” she told me. “I had the scars, but nothing…else. From that time. I don’t remember what happened between when you saw me and then. I don’t know how I got back home or how I got back to normal. I guess I’m the one with the amnesia now. I’m dying to know. But maybe I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”  
I knew exactly how it had happened. The Skull Heart had just removed all traces of her scientific augmentations, save for the scars, and then put her in her bed at home. Because of my wish.  
“My parents were glad to see me back,” Painwheel went on. “And I was…” She had to pause. “…I was so glad to see them again. They actually hugged me and told me they loved me.”   
I think she must have been close to crying. I could just tell from the look on her face. But she bit her lip and glared out at the water. She didn’t want me to catch her crying. “That’s how it happened,” she finished. “And I’m glad. I don’t EVER want to go back to the Labs.”  
“Why are you still going by ‘Painwheel’?” I asked. “Why not ‘Carol’?”  
“Because Painwheel is a bigger part of who I am than Carol is,” Painwheel practically growled. “But Brain Drain is gone.”  
“Brain Drain?”  
“The voice they put in my head to make me obey orders. I didn’t just LOOK like a monster back then, Filia. They made me act like one.”  
I wanted to say that I knew. That that’s why she attacked me in the street. But I’m not quite sure that was the case. I think the “Carol” part of her was still mad at me for what I did when she was younger. When we were both younger. I think that part was lashing out at me. And I didn’t want to bring that up.   
“Well, we don’t feel like fighting you again,” Samson interrupted.   
“Be quiet, Samson!” I cried, embarrassed. “Well, Painwheel…I’m glad you’re here with us now. The way you are.”  
“Thanks for inviting me to the beach,” Painwheel replied. “You know…I know you’ve grown up and everything, but I’m still not sure why you’re trying so hard to be my friend. I thought I told you not to feel guilty. And I’m not a charity case, okay?”  
I began to get nervous. “Aren’t we friends now?” I asked shakily.   
“Yes,” Painwheel admitted. “I want to think that, anyway. I just think sometimes that you’re only sticking around me because of your guilt, or because I’m alone. I’m fine on my own, you know. I REALLY don’t want any fake friends, Filia.” She was getting angrier. “If I’m just something to ease your conscience, you can go home right now. I’ll be fine.”  
“But I WANT to be your friend!” I said hurriedly. Because it was true. I didn’t want Painwheel to abandon me after all we’d talked about. I looked forward to our walks on the beach. A LOT. And…even when we were enemies during the Bloody Marie incident, we shared something. We were both a part of that chaos, and no one else in our class could say that. I felt, honestly, like we had a bond because of that. Even while beating the crap out of each other.   
When I said that, I saw Painwheel’s expression change. She looked at me with what I think was astonishment…but also, happiness. “Good,” she said, and I also realized that she was RELIEVED. “I want to be your friend, too. I really look forward to these walks, Filia. I was just…scared it wasn’t real for you.”  
“It’s real!” I insisted.   
“Ugh,” Samson groaned. “You two are being such GIRLS right now.”  
“Be QUIET, Samson!” I cried.  
Painwheel stood up. “Wanna keep going?” she asked me, smiling.  
“Yeah!” I answered.  
I started to get up, but Painwheel reached down to me first to grab my hand and pull me up. So I took her hand, and she did. Then we kept walking.


	5. Records

We kept hanging out for the next year. Sometimes we would talk about our pasts (or as much of them as we could remember) and sometimes we would just gossip about our classmates or talk about whether Dobermans or pit bulls were more reliable dogs. We laid almost everything out on the table. I still didn’t tell her about the Skull Heart, though. And for the longest time, I didn’t even think to bring up a recurring nightmare I’d had. I knew she had her share of secrets, too, but for the most part she was open about talking about the Labs, about Valentine, about Brain Drain.  
We went a lot of other places besides the beach. Out for ice cream, to dinner at the diners in Little Innsmouth, playing pinball at the arcade. I went to Painwheel’s house a few times so we could work on her sewing projects together. I met her parents; they were nice. (They didn’t even comment on Samson, who I know freaks people out.) And once, Painwheel even played her cello for me. It was really nice just to sit there on the floor of her room and hear her play.   
But after a while, the place we hung out most commonly was at my house, since we would be free of interruption there. We could do whatever we wanted. We studied, we played board games (Painwheel always yells really loudly whenever she wins – “HA! I WON! I WON!”), we watched movies with the volume maxed out. Samson just had to put up with it, of course.  
But our favorite thing to do, since there was no one else in the apartment to disturb with loud noise, was to bring our favorite records and put them on, playing them as loudly as we could. Sometimes we’d dance. If there were lyrics, we’d sing, but we both tended to like swing, the sort of music that didn’t have words at all, so more often, it was either dancing or lying on the floor and listening because we’d gotten tired out from all that dancing.  
It got to the point where we were hanging out pretty much every day. Painwheel’s parents didn’t mind. As they put it, I was a nice girl.   
“Thank you for being so nice to Carol,” her mother told me. “Sometimes I fear for her.”  
And as I said, I didn’t have any parents around to voice any disapproval.


	6. Parents

One day, Painwheel told me a story I’d never heard before. We were walking down the shoreline again, like we used to do after she first transferred to my school.  
“One time,” she said, “when I was still a monster, I tried to go home. I broke out of the Labs and ran to my house as fast as I could. The further away I got from the labs, the more I got in control over Brain Drain, and he couldn’t hold me back.   
“I got all the way to the front step and banged on the door. I thought I’d really made it. That I’d escaped for good. That I could go HOME. I still thought that when my parents answered. I yelled, ‘Mom, Dad, it’s me!’ But…”  
She was quiet for a while.  
“Are you seriously going to leave it hanging?” Samson asked.  
“Shut up, Samson,” Painwheel snapped.  
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Samson, I could feel, had turned indignant.  
“They didn’t recognize me,” Painwheel concluded, her voice going quiet. “They screamed, ‘Aah, a monster!’ And they slammed the door in my face. I lost all my will then. Brain Drain took hold and steered me back to the labs.”  
“That’s awful!” I was legitimately angry. “How could they DO that?”  
“It wasn’t their fault,” Painwheel told me. “I didn’t look anything like I do now. I don’t blame them.”  
“Did they figure it out when they saw your…?” I traced the shape of an X across my face. Painwheel had her stitches taken out long ago, but I could still see the scar shining across her face.  
“I never asked,” Painwheel admitted. “But they’ve treated me like their daughter since that morning I woke up in my own bed without a blade welded to my spine. So I guess it doesn’t matter.”


	7. Green-Haired Me

“Did I ever tell you about the nightmare I keep having?” I asked Painwheel over ice cream.  
“No,” Painwheel answered.  
“It’s weird,” I told her. “I keep dreaming that I’m being chased through New Meridian by someone who looks just like me, but she has green hair. Well, I guess it’s actually a parasite on her head like Samson, but it has tentacles that flow like hair, so I just think of her as ‘Green-Haired Me.’ Green-Haired Me keeps trying to fight me. She ends up fighting a bunch of other people in the streets. People I’ve met, people I’ve seen on TV… And at first, she used to get defeated by one of them somewhere down the line. But now, she kills all of them, and she fights me. I’m always terrified that I’m going to die – “  
“Filia thinks that if you die in a dream, you die in real life,” Samson interrupted. “Stupid superstition.”  
“Says you,” Painwheel snapped at him.  
“But I always beat her,” I finished. “Only by a little bit, though. I nearly lose every time. It’s like I’m fighting for my life. It bugs me that lately, these dreams have gotten worse.”  
“You mean you have them more often?” Painwheel asked.  
“…Yeah,” I lied.  
This is the real reason they’ve gotten worse. Lately, the last person Green-Haired Me fights before she gets to me is always Painwheel. In the dream, Painwheel looks like she did when she was an experiment in the labs. But that’s not the part that scares me. It’s watching Green-Haired Me kill Painwheel. Which always happens before Green-Haired Me charges at me.   
One night, I woke up terrified. “Samson?” I asked. “Are you awake?”  
“I am now,” he grunted.  
“Painwheel’s alive, right?” I was in that stage of waking up where you can’t quite convince yourself your dreams weren’t real yet.  
“Yes, Filia.”  
I was relieved. “Good.”


	8. Secrets

It was around that time when I began realizing that I wanted to do certain things.   
I wanted to use my index finger to delicately trace over Painwheel’s scar.  
I wanted to hold her hand when we walked down the beach.  
I wanted to hug her more often.  
I wanted to kiss her on the lips.  
And part of me even wanted to reach out and unbutton the top few buttons on her uniform shirt…if she wanted me to, of course.  
But most of all, I wanted to be living with her in fifty years. To walk down the beach with a 65-year-old Painwheel and talk about everything and nothing. To dance to our old records and talk about how silly and campy the music was back when we were younger. But that was never going to happen because I was not even going to get old. Even after I turned into a Skullgirl, I knew they’d all be out to kill me right away, either to save the city from me or to wish on the Skull Heart. I knew I’d have been lucky if I see age seventeen.  
Painwheel could grow old, though, and for some reason, even picturing her alone on the beach made me happy. With gray streaks in her hair, wrinkles in her skin, and her scars faded a little more. Probably would have gained some weight, too, but it wouldn’t make her look bad. 


	9. Confessions

We were at my apartment, playing chess.  
“Just move your knight to queen five!” Samson hissed.  
“No!” I snapped. He was right, of course, but I wanted to figure it out on my own.  
I made a move. I messed up. Painwheel put me in checkmate. But instead of yelling “HA! CHECKMATE!” as usual, she just smiled at me. I could tell something was on her mind.  
“What’s up?” I asked her.  
“There’s been something on my mind lately,” she admitted. “It’s big.”  
“Tell me anyway.”  
“You sure?”  
“Yes!”  
“Why do I get the feeling you’re gonna regret this?” Samson sighed.  
“Filia,” Painwheel said, her crimson eyes locked on mine, “we’ve been best friends for a long time. We’ve been through a lot together. Ever since…well, you know when. Anyway, that’s been changing lately.”  
“Changing? Changing how?” I started to worry. “Are you…sick of me?”  
Painwheel shook her head. “Filia. I love you.”  
It took me a bit to even grasp what she’d said. When I did, I was happy for only a brief moment, happier than I’d ever been. But the happiness immediately left when I remembered my fate. The Skull Heart still beat in my chest. I couldn’t stop myself from starting to cry. It was just a little at first, but then I just couldn’t hold back. I was bawling.  
I think Painwheel thought, at first, that I was rejecting her love. But she figured out pretty quickly that there was another piece to the puzzle. She knew I wouldn’t have cried that hard just over not returning her feelings. “Filia…what’s wrong?”  
“I’m…I’m a Skullgirl,” I forced out through my tears. “I was the one who killed Bloody Marie. I got the Skull Heart. And I made a wish on it. That’s why there hasn’t been a Skullgirl for a year. Because it’s inside of me!” I was literally blinded by my own tears. “The tran…the transformation is slow, but it…it’s happening.”  
“The girl’s a time bomb,” Samson supplied, perfectly calm. “She’s not gonna be around for much longer for you to love.”  
“WHAT?” Painwheel shrieked. And then she was standing over me. “You GODDAMN IDIOT! WHY? WHY WOULD YOU WISH ON THAT THING? WHY DID YOU THROW YOUR FUCKING LIFE AWAY?”  
She grabbed onto my shoulders while she yelled, but immediately let go. We’d both hurt each other enough during our battle during the Bloody Marie incident. I knew she didn’t want to do anything like that to me ever again.  
I couldn’t answer. I could only cry. I’d let her down. I’d led her on. Maybe it was stupid of me to have ever tried to be her friend in the first place. I should have been able to see something like this coming.  
Painwheel took a deep breath, then let it slowly, forcing herself to be calm. “I am mad,” she told me, slowly and sternly. “But I’m not really that mad at you. I’m sorry. I just can’t believe that I have to LOSE you.” She paused. “What did you wish for?”  
“This house,” I lied. “That’s how I really got it. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I wished for somewhere to live. I know, it was stupid to throw my life away for that.”  
“Well, what’s done is done.” Painwheel knelt down in front of where I sat, and she took each of my hands in one of her own, clasping them. “Listen, Filia. I promise you that no matter how much of a monster you become, I won’t ever forget you. I will always recognize you, no matter how you look. I’ll always remember you and who you really are. Who you are RIGHT NOW.”  
I knew she was thinking about her parents then, and how they didn’t do that for her. She obviously blamed them more than she let on. But I also knew she was being perfectly honest to me.   
“Thank you,” I told her, and I found I was able to be more calm, not to cry as hard. “I…I want to love you someday, Painwheel. I’m not there yet. But I like you a lot. I do have a crush on you. I think about you all the time, even when you’re not here. I…I want to kiss you…”  
“So just kiss already!” Samson growled. I could tell he was getting tired of the drama.  
“Do you want to?” Painwheel asked me.  
I nodded.  
That was when we had our first kiss. Painwheel held my hands tight, like she would never let go again, like maybe, if she held on tight enough, she could pull me away from the Skull Heart. And when she put her lips on mine, she was incredibly gentle. The happiness returned, breaking through my sorrow. My tears stopped completely. I just wanted to stay there, in that moment, with her, forever.  
Later that night, I confessed to her about my other fantasies about her. So when we decided to re-watch one of our old favorite movies, she had the idea that while I would sit upright, she would lay back, her head resting on my lap, so that I could trace the lines of her scar. When I did, she closed her eyes, and I wondered if I was stirring up any bad memories, of the Labs, of Brain Drain, when I touched that X etched into her skin. But she smiled.   
Later, Samson asked me, “Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”  
“Because I already made the wish for her out of guilt,” I told him. “I don’t want her know because I don’t want to make it into something I did so that people KNEW I sacrificed myself for someone else. I didn’t want her to feel like a charity case, either. And I really don’t want her to blame herself. She doesn’t really need to know.”


	10. Girlfriend

Painwheel was my girlfriend.  
We caused gossip throughout the whole school when we walked down the hallway, holding hands. Mostly of the “I knew it!” variety. We also held hands on the beach. Suddenly, the things we did before, we did with a new perspective.   
And we touched a lot more as well. The first time I could ever remember really touching Painwheel was when we’d fought, and that memory stung. I told her that, and she told me, “Forget about that. It’s done. Let’s move on.” So when we sat on the beach, we had our arms looped around each other’s shoulders or waists. When we danced, it was as dance floor partners – I would usually let her lead, though she sometimes insisted I do it to shake things up. Her hand in my hand, her other hand on my waist or shoulder. We would greet each other with a kiss, say goodbye with a kiss, and kiss at least once more in between. Samson found that it got old for him very quickly to be perched on the back of my head for all of this, but we just told him to deal with it, and he did.  
And after a while of this, I realized I was ready to say it.  
“Painwheel, I love you.”


	11. Skull Heart

“You have seven days.”  
I sat bolt upright in bed, screaming. That woke Samson up, and he screamed. I caught my breath and looked at the clock. 3:00 a.m.   
“Who said that?” I asked hoarsely.  
“I did.” The voice came from my own chest. The Skull Heart.  
“What’s in seven days?” I asked in a panic.  
“I am getting stronger,” the Skull Heart told me. It must have been true, since this was the first time since I’d absorbed it that it had been able to talk to me. “In seven days, you will become the Skullgirl. Your transformation will be over.”  
“No,” I whispered. “Please, no. Give me more time…”  
“You knew this time would come, Filia. You knew it ever since I granted your wish.”  
I cried myself back to sleep.  
The next day, at school, Painwheel could tell all throughout classes that I was restless. “What’s going on?” she asked me at lunch.  
“The Skull Heart,” I whispered. “It told me I only have seven days left. Before…”  
Painwheel knew what I meant.  
We met up after school again. “It’s been talking to me all day,” I told her.  
“You can’t ignore me,” the Skull Heart said to punctuate my statement. I knew neither Painwheel nor Samson could hear it.  
“It’s like having another voice in my head,” I said, panicking. “I can hear it in my own chest, but Samson can’t hear it and you can’t hear it and – “  
Painwheel nodded, so I stopped blabbing. “I remember what it was like,” she said, and I knew she was thinking of Brain Drain. “You can do this, Filia. It will talk. But you don’t have to listen.”  
“It scares me, Painwheel.”  
“I know.” I could see the despair on her face. “I’m gonna stay with you for as long as you need, Filia. I’m going to help you try and ignore that voice. Samson’s here for you too. Right, Samson?”  
“Right,” Samson agreed.  
“But in seven days…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.  
“You need to let me know everything you want to do before then,” Painwheel told me. “And we’re going to make sure you do it.”  
“Make the most of it,” I said softly.  
Painwheel nodded. “Exactly.”


	12. Doing It

I didn’t ask all that much of Painwheel for the first two days. She tried to figure out fun things for us to do. She dug out all my favorite films for us to watch and treated me to dinner both nights. I enjoyed them to the fullest of my ability, and I found that I was actually able to drown out the Skull Heart’s voice.   
That second night, a thought occurred to me. I didn’t know if it would be right to ask, but I eventually decided that there wouldn’t be any harm in the question alone. “Painwheel?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Have you ever wanted to…go…all the way?”  
“What do you – “ Then she realized what I meant. “Oh. ALL the way. You and me.”  
“I’m sorry if that’s – “  
“I’ve thought about it.” She nodded. “Do you want to?”  
“Yes,” I admitted.  
“Well, you don’t have much time left,” Painwheel reminded me. “If it’s something you really want, we need to do it sooner rather than later.”  
“And you’re ready…?”  
“Yes, Filia.” She smiled. “I am. Just name a time. Within the next five days.”  
“Tomorrow?” I suggested.  
Painwheel nodded. “Tomorrow. After school, or dinner first?”  
“After school,” I told her. “If that’s okay with you.”  
“I think you should be more worried about if it’s okay with Samson.”  
“Oh…” I blushed. "He won't be involved. He'll be asleep."  
"He can do that?" Painwheel asked.  
"It's what I do every time she has to use the bathroom," Samson explained in mild disgust. "I definitely DON'T want to watch that. Or this."  
“So we’re doing this,” I said.  
Painwheel nodded. “I’m actually really excited.” She let a giggle escape.   
“I can’t remember if I’ve ever done it before,” I admitted. “I don’t think I have, though. I think you’re my first.”  
“You’re my first,” Painwheel told me. “It’s…going to be so hard to find someone who can come after you, Filia.”  
“I’m sorry.”   
“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”  
“It was my wish.”  
“It’s in the past.”  
All through the next day, at school, I found I was becoming more and more excited. I just wanted to be in a place where I was closer to Painwheel than ever before. Where she was closer to me than she had been. Where we had nothing left to hide from each other – physically, at least. I was under the impression we had nothing left to hide emotionally (though I had forgotten one crucial detail). I was more than ready.  
I went home first that day to prepare, bathing thoroughly; Samson entered his coma for the day. I heard Painwheel’s knock at my apartment door: insistent, a little aggressive. I ran to the door to answer it.  
Painwheel stood there, glaring at me angrily, and I became afraid. I didn’t have any clue what could have made her mad. But then she said the words that explained it all:  
“You didn’t wish for this apartment.”  
My last secret. She knew. Somehow, she knew. I tried to lie my way out of it: “Yes, I did – “  
“I was trying to think about the memories I was missing,” Painwheel told me. “Of what happened between my last day as a monster and when I woke up in my own bed. And for the first time, it occurred to me. I’m NOT missing any memories. NO TIME PASSED BETWEEN THEN, FILIA. And you were the one who found the Skull Heart after meeting me and remembering about how you used to treat me when I was Carol. On the night I magically transformed. I can put two and two together.”  
I was trapped. “I can’t…lie anymore,” I admitted. “Yes. I wished for you to have a better life.”  
“So you’re transforming because of me, and you didn’t even tell me?”  
I had nothing to say.  
“God…fucking…DAMMIT!” She aimed a kick at the wall. “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME, FILIA? WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE TURNING INTO A SKULLGIRL BECAUSE OF ME?”  
“BECAUSE IT WASN’T A PURE WISH IN THE FIRST PLACE!” I screamed back. “THE REASON I’M TURNING IS BECAUSE I WISHED IT TO GET RID OF MY GUILT! AND I KNEW YOU’D BLAME YOURSELF! I DIDN’T WANT THAT!”  
“Just…augh…fuck!” Painwheel seethed. “How can I not blame myself, Filia?”  
“Blame Valentine! Blame the Labs! They were the ones who ruined your life!”  
“DO YOU THINK I NEED REMINDING?”  
“No…” I averted my gaze. I was beginning to cry: the night I’d first confessed I was a Skullgirl, all over again.  
“Fuck, Filia…don’t…” Painwheel sighed. “Can I come in?”  
I realized we’d had this entire conversation in the door, her in the hallway, me in the apartment. “Sure.”  
I let her in. Truth was, I wanted her to be there more than anything else. I was terrified this would leave a rift between us. I wanted to work it out.  
“I guess I’m just mad because you kept this secret for YEARS,” Painwheel told me.   
“I didn’t know what to do,” I replied. “It didn’t feel right to tell you.”  
“I know…I know,” she sighed. “I know why you didn’t tell me. And honestly, I should be happy. The only reason I blame myself is because I figured it out. But…you’re going to become the next Skullgirl so that I could be this. And you let me talk about how happy I was to not be a monster anymore. Right in front of you, when the reason I’m not is because…you…”  
And then she cried. I’d never seen her truly shed tears before that moment.   
We didn’t end up doing what we had planned that night. We just sat on the couch and held each other. 

 


	13. Following Through

The following night, we did what we had originally agreed upon. We agreed to put aside all our sorrows, all our misgivings, and just focus on each other.  
I don’t want to put down in words the events of that night. I feel like it should remain between the two of us. All I’ll say is that it might just have been the happiest moment of my entire life. And – and this is the important part – Painwheel was just as happy as me, if not more.


	14. Countdown

The last day, we spent in downtown New Meridian. The impending transformation loomed over me like a dark shadow, but from the way Painwheel and I acted, you wouldn’t have known it at all. We went out shopping, picking out the most outrageous and ridiculous outfits. I know I made Samson look a fool by setting all those different hats on him. From there, we proceeded to purchase as much candy as we could fit in our pockets, and as we strutted down the sidewalk, attempting to look classy, we were stuffing our faces with candies (and occasionally putting candies in each other’s mouths).  
I had thought, for some reason, that I would have a full day. That the time limit would be neat and tidy, and that it wouldn’t happen until I got home and went to sleep at the end of the day. That I’d wake up the next day as a Skullgirl. I don’t know why I made that stupid, stupid assumption.   
“Your time is up,” the Skull Heart said.  
I was struck with horror. I stopped. The piece of taffy in my hand dropped to the sidewalk.  
“Filia?” Painwheel noticed I’d stopped. She turned to look at me. I must have looked absolutely terrified, because she screamed, “FILIA!”, terror overcoming her.  
“Run,” I said hoarsely.  
I didn’t know it would be that painful. The cold sweat returned, and I was sure I was going to vomit. I doubled over and ended up on my knees on the sidewalk.  
“FILIA!” Painwheel knelt by me, panicking. People began to gather, and I could hear the chatter: “Is she okay?” “What’s going on?”  
“GO AWAY!” I screamed. “RUN, PAINWHEEL! RUN NOW! IT’S HAPPENING!”  
The look in her eyes nearly killed me. “No…” she whimpered.  
“GO NOW! RUN!” I kept screaming. Then I could look at her no more. The pain overcame me. I closed my eyes, ducking my head toward the sidewalk. I could feel my body changing, feel something terrible surging through my veins. All I knew to do was to keep screaming: “GO! RUN! GO NOW!”  
I forced myself to look up. Painwheel had finally done as I’d told her. She was running away from me at full speed. If she had stayed, I knew I would have killed her. Such is being a Skullgirl.  
As my body lifted off the ground, levitating into the air, I realized that I’d never told Painwheel the one thing that mattered most. It wasn’t “I love you.” I never told her, the way she told me, that I’d always remember her. That even when my mind was warped, part of me would always recall her. That some part of me would hold onto the memories of her to look back on. I hoped she knew.   
I felt myself becoming strong. I looked down to the streets below. Cracks formed in the ground. I could feel myself tied into a dark energy, something deathly but still powerful. I saw the sky itself go dark.   
Then I accepted it.


	15. Big Band

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Big Band's POV.

New Meridian. You can never rest in it. There are times it seems dormant, but there’s always trouble lurking just under the surface.   
I knew it was only a matter of time before there would be another Skullgirl. There always is, eventually. I’d hoped that the next one wouldn’t turn up for another hundred years, but all the telltale signs were happening. The dead rising from their graves. The earth shaking. The sky going black. If nobody stopped her, the city would go down. That’s where I came in.  
“Wowee!” Peacock said from my side. “Now THERE’S a Skullgirl!”  
“You stay back,” I warned her. “That ain’t a place for a little girl.” I knew what she was thinking.  
“You keep thinkin’ I’m some ordinary little girl!” Peacock replied casually. “Listen, buster. Breakin’ Skullgirls is what I was made for!”  
She ran into the fray, and I had no choice but to chase after her. I wasn’t about to let her die on my watch. Figures it would be me and Peacock heading right toward the Skullgirl. And if we met her, well, we might as well take her down, I thought.  
That’s the job, always. When a Skullgirl turns up, you gotta bring her down. Even if she’s just a kid, like Marie was. It ain’t pretty. But it’s gotta be done. I counted myself glad I didn’t have to give Marie the killing blow, at least. I could’ve done it. But for a little girl like that, it wouldn’t have been easy. Nor would it have been easy to forget.  
As I followed Peacock into the city, I saw the new one, flying above the streets, just about ready to unleash full havoc. She wasn’t a kid like Marie was. But she was only a teenager. Sixteen, maybe seventeen.   
Shit.  
How do you even end up like that so young?


	16. Painwheel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Painwheel's POV.

I ran all the way out of the city, into the suburbs, back home. It still wasn’t real to me yet. It didn’t seem POSSIBLE. Not Filia.   
I saw the sky go dark. I felt the ground shake. It was happening. She was really gone.   
As soon as I opened the door, my parents caught me, hugging me tightly. “Carol!” Mom gushed. “We were worried!”  
“There’s a new Skullgirl – “ Dad tried to explain.  
“I KNOW!” I screamed, writhing out of their embrace. I needed space. I needed…something that would either prove this all to be a terrible nightmare or actually help me grasp the reality.  
I loved her. And she was gone. Her physical body could still be found. You could look up and see it from anywhere. But she was still gone.  
“Carol?” Mom asked tentatively. “What’s wrong – “  
“It’s Filia,” I told her.  
Mom gasped. Dad was speechless. Then he asked, “Did you know…?”  
“She told me,” I informed him. “A long time ago. We knew our time was running out.”  
“Oh, honey…” Mom attempted to console me. “I’m so sorry…”  
“YOU’RE sorry?” I screamed at her. I could feel tears forming in my eyes. “THEY’RE GOING TO KILL HER! AND SOME GODDAMN BRAT IS GOING TO RIP OUT HER FUCKING HEART AND USE IT TO WISH FOR MONEY OR A BOYFRIEND! AND IT’S BECAUSE OF ME!”  
I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran upstairs to my room and slammed the door.  
Everything in that room was Filia. The clothes we’d made together. The cello I’d played for her. The records I’d brought to her apartment. I lay facedown on the bed so I wouldn’t have to look at it.  
I had thought, that morning that I woke up as a normal girl, that it was the beginning of a new life for me, a practically perfect life. I had NEVER wanted to go back to being a lab monster again. But for the first time, I wished I was. I wished that Filia had never made her wish. Yes, it would mean that I would have stayed a monster forever. And yes, it would mean that I wouldn’t even have LIKED her, that I wouldn’t have given a damn whether she lived or died. But she would have lived. Happily.   
Maybe, I thought, I should be the one to kill her. I could take the Skull Heart from inside her then…and use it to undo her own wish. Reverse everything!   
But I knew there were a hundred ways that would backfire. And even more than that…it wasn’t what she would have wanted me to do.   
All I could do was remember.


	17. Fukua

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Fukua's POV.

I’ve made up my mind. Or at least my half of the mind I live in. Filia might be corrupted by the Skull Heart, and I have no idea what happened to Samson, but I’m still perfectly sane.  
So I’m going to bring this bitch down from the inside out.  
Yes. I’m going to kill the Skullgirl. I’m in the perfect position. Where better to strike than from inside the Skullgirl’s head? After that, I can use the Skull Heart to wish myself my own identity. Which will, of course, make me into a Skullgirl. But at least it will make me into SOMETHING. Something I don’t have to share with this bitch.   
All I have to do is what I do in her dreams every night. Take down her defenses around her mind by killing the people that form out of her memories of them. I’ve already got most of them down, and there’s just one more before I get to battle Filia herself. Then I can finally do it.  
There’s just one problem. The memories of the last person are way stronger than usual. I can’t get past her. The one thing standing in my way, and I can’t kill her!  
That fucking Painwheel bitch just won’t die!


End file.
